gayannabeth

  With a very feminine sounding groan, I woke up the next morning lying on my couch, with…

  Oh my God, I fell asleep cuddling Rachel st night. Fortunately, my hands weren’t anywhere scandalous — with one of my arms pinned underneath her still sleeping form, and the other draped gently over her, hand resting on her soft belly.

  My mind racing, I debated waking her up, but as soon as I took one look at the peaceful look on her cute face as she slept, that urge melted away.

  I gently tried to see if I could get my arm out from under her, and it turns out she’s surprisingly light. I awkwardly maneuvered myself out from between my sleeping friend and the back of the couch, then made my way to the kitchen to make something to eat and to down at least three gsses of water.

  I popped some bread in the toaster, not really having any other options in terms of food.

  Ok, I needed to address the elephant in the room: that kiss. Or kisses, as it were. One problem: I had no idea what to think of… any of it. Did I enjoy kissing Rachel? Yes, absolutely I did. In fact, if she came up to me and asked, I’d kiss her again, I doubt I’d have the self control to not at this point.

  I was crushing on her. Hard. And it just wasn’t fair because she wouldn’t really be into me because I’m not really a girl. I had never wished more than that moment that I could just be one. But, really, considering that I was almost one hundred percent certain Rachel was trans, what are the odds of me also being trans? It was simply too much of a coincidence!

  Once the toast I’d put in was done, I put in a couple more slices of bread for Rachel, then set about spreading butter and jam on my own toast.

  With perfect timing, Rachel stumbled into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and messy-haired, looking to me at that moment like the most beautiful girl in the world (goddamn I was falling) just as her toast popped. I handed her a gss of water and started spreading butter and jam on her toast as well.

  “Thanks,” she said, her voice a little hoarse, but sounding not at all masculine — something which I knew most trans girls struggled with, thank fuck for magic video games, I guess.

  “No prob,” I replied, handing over her pte of toast, which she eagerly started chowing down on. The toast, not the actual pte, that is.

  Midway through her second slice, she sighed and put the pte down. “We- We need to talk.”

  I feigned ignorance. “What about?”

  Rachel hissed. “Lillith, you fucking know exactly what about, you bitch.” I know the word is typically insulting, but hearing another girl casually call me that without any malice or ill-intent… it felt weirdly nice?

  I shrugged. “You mean the kiss?”

  “Kisses, Lillith,” Rachel said. “Plural. Like, at least five-”

  “I counted seven,” I said.

  Rachel groaned. “That’s even worse. I-”

  I frowned. “You didn’t like it?”

  Rachel dropped her head in her hands, making a weird sort of scratchy-croaking noise. “I- I did,” she admitted. “I- I fucking enjoyed it, which makes no sense because we’re- we’re both guys a- and straight guys at that, but now we just look like g- girls and I’m just so fucking confused.”

  “Well, you said yourself st night: we look like girls, so, technically, it’s like we’re kissing a girl. Besides, you started it!”

  Rachel froze. “Yeah…” she furrowed her brow, picking up her toast again and taking another bite, chewing slowly.

  “Why did you kiss me?” I asked.

  Rachel frowned, swallowing her bite of toast. “I- I wanted to,” she whispered. “I wanted to k- k- kiss you.”

  I mean, yes, but why?

  “Why did you want to kiss me?” I asked, a bit scared of what the answer could be.

  Rachel took several seconds to answer. Finally, she said, “I don’t know.”

  “Like, we can say all we want that it’s not really gay because we both look like girls right now, but, we both know I’m really a guy, so-”

  “I said I don’t know!” Rachel shouted. “And does it matter if- if- if- fuck!” She gred at her toast, blushing. “So what if I- I- I wanted m- my first k- kiss to be with some- someone I trust? Even if we’re both r- really guys, right now, you look like a really pretty girl, and, out of everyone I know r- right now, I…” she trailed off, then picked up her toast and stuffed the rest of it into her mouth, her eyes starting to water. Oh my fuck, she was starting to cry.

  “Rachel?” I said when she finally finished chewing and swallowing her toast.

  “What?” She snapped, then cringed, hastily putting her pte down.

  “Are you ok?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said.

  No, you won’t, I thought. Not if you keep trying to convince yourself you’re really a guy. But I didn’t say that out loud. Even if I hadn’t read about that egg prime thingamajig yesterday, that exact moment really didn’t feel like the best time to go ‘hey, Rachel, maybe you’re really a trans girl.’ I feel like she’d freak out more than a little.

  Shortly after breakfast, after we’d recovered enough from our hangovers, Rachel left to head back home. I wondered if she really would continue pying that game. I imagined she probably would. I probably only resisted the urge to py it st night because I was otherwise occupied tongue wrestling with my best friend. Now, I was alone again, with nothing to distract me. The game called out to me, beckoning me to py. To see how the story of my pyer character and Amethyst ended, to see how far the magic transformation would go. I hoped it went all the way.

  Well, I did have some homework I could use to distract myself for now.

  Imagine that, me actually considering doing homework over gaming. Mom would be so proud!

  Unfortunately, there were only so many times where I could use L’H?pital’s Rule before I went insane, so by the time I finished my calculus homework, I was so thoroughly fed up with all things school, that I decided that I could continue procrastinating the rest of my homework in favour of opening up Discord.

  Waiting for me was a message from Rachel.

  XxChained_RachelxX: got home safe. gonna game some more (edited)

  And, sure enough, her status indicated she was once again pying the game.

  I mean, if she was trans, she absolutely needed it.

  …

  But…

  …

  I wasn’t completely sure of it. You couldn’t always tell for sure.

  I decided I should continue pying the game as well. In solidarity, of course. No other reason than that!

  …

  Ok, maybe I was curious if my boobs would get a bit bigger, but it was only curiosity and nothing more!

  I quickly got back in the groove of pying the game, no hint of rust from my two day absence. I knocked out three missions in quick succession. During the fourth, I was rudely interrupted by my bdder. I scooped up my phone, turning on the screen, leaving my room to head to the bathroom, wincing as my hips bumped the doorframe. I’d gotten a message from Olivia.

  0livia_090722: I hope ur ready for the next assignment

  I groaned. We'd be getting our next assignments tomorrow. On the bright side, I’d still be partnered with Olivia, and she was nice enough.

  Lady Lillith: yeah, I’ll be ready for it

  Oh fuck. I’d forgotten I’d changed my username to that. Maybe she wouldn’t notice?

  0livia_090722: awesome! I’ll see u in css tmrw. Also, nice name. Great pick

  Well, looks like she noticed. I needed to deflect somehow, draw attention away from the username.

  Lady Lillith: thnx haha

  Lady Lillith: also, what r the numbers in ur username? I’ve been wondering for a while

  I cringed. What a stupid deflection.

  0livia_090722: oh, that’s when I started HRT

  When she started what?

  I figured I could just ask her, but also, Google existed, and I didn’t want to seem stupid incase ‘HRT’ was something that ‘everyone’ knows about except me and people would ugh at me behind my back when they learned just how ignorant I was of this super basic piece of knowledge.

  I opened up Chrome and started typing in the search bar.

  what is hrt

  Apparently it was something known as ‘hormone repcement therapy’, which referred to a number of things, but the one that stood out the most was… for trans people. To repce their unwanted estrogen or testosterone with much more welcome testosterone or estrogen.

  Wait a minute…

  Did this mean Olivia was trans?!

  Lady Lillith: wait, ur trans?

  0livia_090722: wait, you didn’t already know? Sweetie, I literally invited you to a trans support group. I’m literally a fucking part of it!

  Wait a minute…

  Lady Lillith: wait, no, Hazel did that

  0livia_090722: whatever, I thought it was obvious

  Lady Lillith: nope

  0livia_090722: anyway, u gonna be there on Tuesday?

  That was an important question. Was I going to be there? I mean, I wasn’t really trans, but I was effectively pretending to be a trans girl. Besides, if I went, maybe I could ask for advice about Rachel.

  Lady Lillith: yeah, I’ll be there

  gayannabeth